"Gamer Entitlement": Current state of gaming journalism and industry

[RobfromtheGulag]

Hello

This is a fine post and I agree.


It seems to me they could have skipped a lot of this hassle if they'd just called it something else. Bayonetta could have been called DMC Dante's Female Equivalent, but no they made it a new IP, and it is generally well regarded. This infatuation with rebooting series will hopefully die off after it bites publishers in the ass enough times.

 

[Polite Sage]

"Most boycoters only want the game to crash" and everything that comes after that becomes absolutely pointless because what I have been saying so far as already been acknowledged by you with that sentence.

I cant help but think of how little you think of those who actually like the game.

Doesn't make anything I said less true though. You make a good game and gain fans who love your games, then make an inferior game while insulting them and everything they liked in the process and you're bound to lose customers. This is true for every type of entertainment and the developers need to suck it up, not further flame up everything. Plenty of franchises have had bad reboots but it's Capcom, NT and journalist's fault for making it so memorable and widespread hated. If the the reviewers truly know what the gamers like better than they themselves do, I do wonder why they decided to outright insult people instead of luring them into buying it.

Capcom even admitted to failing with DMC2 and by their own words "like to pretend it doesn't exists", but whopsee, we got two new games that both improved upon the original and are loved by hack'n'slash players to this day. Maybe they'll admit their mistake with this one, maybe they will not. Capcom fucked up bad and now they're reaping what they sow and that's the way things work in entertainment industry.

I honestly don't know why you think that refraining from buying an inferior product and then urging your peers to do the same is somehow bad. Guess you should get going to buy all those univerally considered bad games in case they end up being good.

 

[anthony87]

Don't let sycophants like Draech discourage you, good thread and I loved those pics, here is some more, this shit is hilarious

"Gaming Journalism" of the best sort. I didn't know about this stuff before since I don't particularly care about the game (haven't played any of them).

They will learn the hard way to respect their customers when their stocks start falling and places have to start shutting down

What's so hilarious about it? It makes perfect sense. I'd be far more inclined to trust a review by Jim Sterling rather than a "review" written by someone as their first post on Metacritic.

But yeah, lets all have a laugh when places start shutting down and people start losing their jobs because some people decided to not give the game a chance ever since they saw the first (admittedly god awful) teaser trailer.

 

[Polite Sage]

What's so hilarious about it? It makes perfect sense. I'd be far more inclined to trust a review by Jim Sterling rather than a "review" written by someone as their first post on Metacritic.

But yeah, lets all have a laugh when places start shutting down and people start losing their jobs because some people decided to not give the game a chance ever since they saw the first (admittedly god awful) teaser trailer.

You DO know they're essentially saying that they themselves get to decide which reviews are genuine and which are not. That reviewer disliked the game? He just didn't play it properly or it was too deep for him!

 

[Paladin2905]

Companies are not entitled to my money and they should have no right to insult a customer on multiple occasions for not buying their products, then raging when their product fails.

Anybody remember the introduction of "New Coke"?

I think these reactions are the logical result of aggressive branding strategies. Back when Coca Cola introduced New Coke, they were well within their rights as the owners of a brand to change and re-release the soda; this however did not make it a good business decision. The new formula tasted just fine, but intense negative attention from fans and by extension the media sank the new product very quickly.

This seems like exactly what happened with many recent titles. Of course the companies have a right to make whatever they want, but they should be very aware that their fan base may not be an advantage to have. Fan bases can be effective tools in selling additional units; fan bases can also be anchors tied around necks. When you make a brand you create a fan base automatically; it is the whole purpose of doing it. Improperly managing a brand is a poor business decision and I don't believe the blame for poor performance falls on the customer.

As a final point, I heartily agree with the guy on Forbes, that "entitled gamers" is the media cliche' du jour for these incidents. I honestly believe that when the act of branding causes (intentionally) psychological attachment to certain products, the customer is reasonably expected to have some stake in the management of a brand.

 

[anthony87]

What's so hilarious about it? It makes perfect sense. I'd be far more inclined to trust a review by Jim Sterling rather than a "review" written by someone as their first post on Metacritic.

But yeah, lets all have a laugh when places start shutting down and people start losing their jobs because some people decided to not give the game a chance ever since they saw the first (admittedly god awful) teaser trailer.

You DO know they're essentially saying that they themselves get to decide which reviews are genuine and which are not. That reviewer disliked the game? He just didn't play it properly or it was too deep for him!

If that's how you choose to interpret what they're saying then fine but I've yet to see a legitimate reviewer give the game a poor score. As I said above, the only poor "reviews" I've seen are from idiots on Metacritic who've disliked the very idea of the game from day 1.

To be fair though I rarely, if ever check websites for reviews so if there are any bad reviews given by gaming publications out there then I'd be happy to admit I'm wrong.

 

[Polite Sage]

Because you base that opinion on incomplete information.

So you're essentially saying that if person hasn't already paid full price for a piece of entertainment he's not allowed to look for other people's opinions or you know- research the product he's about to buy himself? You DO know that's pretty damn stupid and essentially means people should only buy stuff they're told to consume. Or are you saying YOU decide which criticism is valid and which is not? You're saying the majority of old DMC fans are "mindless haters" which you have no way of proving. Yes, there most likely are people who decide to buy the game for no real reason and yes, there are people like me who decided to not buy the game due to it not catering to my tastes, despite you saying I want some kind of empty vindication.

Former fans who thoroughly know the old games' inside out are a great way to find second hand information on a new title in the franchise. When the pretty fucking huge majority of their comments are negative you know some shit is up and this has been true for many other games too. At least I prefer a friendly gamer's comment over a raving mad "journalist" who tells me I'm "bitching or entitled" and should listen to his opinions simply because he and his "professional peers" says so. I'd really urge you to read both of Kain's articles I linked in my OP post.

When "major gaming websites" are refusing to give criticism you can be pretty sure fans have every right to do so on their behalf. The game is worse in almost every possible way and yet everyone is saying "better than any game in the series" and use the word "fun." Fun is not an objective quality. Why is the game fun? Why aren't the previous games fun? These are questions that reviewers rarely answer and if they are answered it will be with illogical restatements of "fun".

 

[mechalynx]

If i were a Dev or a Pub, i wouldn't give two shits about about "Fans" outside of Testers and Professional Critics except MAYBE when it comes to creating a sequel for my game. A big maybe, because i'm pretty sure most of the time numbers speak clearer than the incoherent noise of every gaming forum.

The Internet is a god awful place, especially when it comes to gamers voicing their opinion.

If I were a Dev or a Pub, I'd be giving quite a lot of shits about fans, if I wanted to stay in the business. Your average hard-core fan is basically a walking wallet and a free advertising board combined. Just look at EA's stock price nose dive after DAII/SW:ToR/ME3 fiasco. The games, whatever you personally might think of them, are not the main cause of the negativity. I'd say the largest portion of fan rage comes from the devs either going into ignore-mode or flinging insults at the customers. Sure, some of the said customers were outright assholes, but most (like me) were upset when they discovered that the product was not what was promised.

I'm not saying that devs should cater to every whim of the "unwashed masses", but nor should they lump the most extreme haters together with those who are mostly concerned with their favourite company going where they cannot follow.

For every well-informed, well-spoken, maybe perhaps even constructive (!) criticism there are dozens of so-called opinions mainly comprised of bitching and moaning. For mostly everything but the most well beloved Franchises.

It must be awful for the game industry to hear endless over exaggerated complaints about how all of them are doing their job wrong in the most nastiest and often baseless and interestingly often hypocritical ways.

Maybe we're not frequenting the same forums (or playing the same games for that matter), but I generally find that the situation is the other way around. When a game receives a particularly harsh backlash, most comments contain more levelheaded explanations for the dissatisfaction that mouthfoaming hate. The "omfg.. the devs are blind and deaf to our plight as faithful fans.. how dare they.." kind of hate.

There, i said it. It may be overgeneralized and defending to things and business-practices i do not like myself, but i am sick and tired of Gamers complaining on the Internet.

I'm sorry, but fuck that. If anything, I welcome the bitching masses. Unless you have an attention span of a kitten on speed, it's not that difficult to separate fair critisism from incoherent blubbering if you need an outside oponion on something. For example, it didn't take too long to see that OP was extremely biased in his view. There are quite a lot of devs and journalists besides Eric Kane that didn't behave the way those in his examples did. But he didn't mention them. From BioWare, Allan Schumacher and Patrick Weekes come to mind.

Basically, yes, there are so-called fans that are just outright stupid in what they can ***** about, but if a game is really that bad, they are just the unfortunate tip of the iceberg of people who voice their concern with reason. I have yet to see a decent title destroyed by idiot haters; if a good game tanks, it's usually due to poor advetisement. What I haven't seen in quite some time is a studio that won't lump the said idiots with the concerned part of the fan base, not turn up the artistic integrity card and then act surprised and hurt when their customer base gets up and leaves.

 

[anthony87]

If you want a good laugh the escapists own Bob likes to jump on the "lets whine about gamers!" band wagons like it was going out of style in his work for Screw Attack and on Twitter. It is particularly funny because when he was whining on and trying to defend the game he hadnt even bothered to pick it up and play it.

http://dbzer0.com/blog/where-moviebob-basks-in-his-elitist-ignorance

and some of his choice tweets:

Congratulations, "Mass Effect" crybabies. You've officially set the entire medium back a DECADE as an art form

Also, Bioware? SHAME on you for caving. You've chosen to make coloring books instead of The Mona Lisa.

This is the WORST thing that has happened to gaming since Sega abandoned consoles.

How many more times do I need to explain that this has NOTHING to do with whether or not you "liked" the ending?

if your going to accept a game as ONLY a "product" then yes. But that means we CANNOT ask anyone to take gaming "seriously."

Look, a medium can produce ART or it can produce PRODUCT. If games can be changed at the whims of fanboys, then they are just product and we have no right to demand that Ebert etc take them (or US) "seriously."

Oh man...those were good times. Don't think he's ever fully recovered from the backlash he got after that.

 

[Polite Sage]

No that is not what I am saying.

That is a false conclusion.

You know how I cant say that I dont like your hairstyle from these posts. Yeah well you cant tell the overall quality of a game from a screenshot or a trailer. Yet so many did. And I think you did as well.

I am getting sick and tired of you trying to setup strawmen for you to knock down.

And I'm pretty sick of you attacking me instead of my arguments. You yourself are basing "my opinions" on the fact that I don't agree with you. "Woe thee, he doesn't agree with me so he must be a hater who just doesn't give the game a chance. He calls the previous games superior so he must simply be blinded by rage"

 

[FoolKiller]

It is a difficult tightrope to walk.

On one hand, people call CoD repetitive and boring for not changing anything at all. On the other, people get upset if it changes too much.

Here is a simple concept devs need to follow:
If you use a brand/franchise to get people to play your game, then make sure the current fans are the ones you are satisfying first. Syndicate showed just how bad this can backfire.

Splinter Cell: Conviction was fun to play but it was a terrible Splinter Cell game. So will Blacklist. The same went for Syndicate. When you have a reputation of what is to be expected and have a solid base then don't be surprised that people who liked your franchise (which you've trained them to like) are unhappy about changes they don't believe will make the game better.

I also find it funny when they say "fans are to blame for poor sales". Well of course they are. They are the ones who dictate success. Some seem to forget that. They think its the fans who are to blame when a product fails, but the fans aren't the ones to thank when the product succeeds.

Lets assume for a minute that, as EA head retard Riticiello claims, games are a service. Well why would I pay for an inferior service? If you don't provide the service I want, why should I pay for it?

 

[Polite Sage]

Your arguments are strawmen.

In other words you have non.

Which ones? You say that people shouldn't decide whether to buy a game before they have personal experience or "professional buying guide" with it, and I say that it's bullshit; you can and SHOULD influence your buying decisions and not just follow the 9/10 GOTY reviews with no actual content. You still haven't answered why fan criticism of a predicted bad title is somehow harmful, apart from claiming their criticism never was, and never will be your personal definition of "valid". You're saying people shouldn't be able to form expectations.

You also claim my criticism is "biased" while your's is not. Why? Because you said so.